Sale headed home on Sunday night a priceless losing bonus point in the bag but still in disarray, with the future of their former England fly-half Danny Cipriani in doubt and the possibility of yet more changes in the coaching staff before the end of the season, maybe as soon as February. They go into the second half of the season still anchored to the foot of the table but have cut the gap to London Irish in 11th position to five points thanks to a last-minute conversion from the full-back Rob Miller which followed a desperate lunge for a try by the centre Johnny Leota.

The position regarding Cipriani is less clear. John Mitchell, the man currently picking the Sale team, said the fly-half's future was not up to him. Earlier Cipriani had been heavily criticised by Sale's joint owner Brian Kennedy following last week's 62-0 drubbing at Toulon.

Kennedy, Sale's backer for a decade and the man who bankrolled Cipriani's move to Salford from Melbourne, supported Mitchell's decision to not only drop the former England fly-half from the trip to his former club, but also to elbow him out of the matchday 23. "'It's the coach's decision, but if you can't defend then there's no place for you in Premiership rugby," Kennedy said. "Danny had a dreadful game in defence last week. And if you're not prepared to put your body on the line for this club, who pay your wages and give you the chance to play at the highest level each week, then you won't be in the squad, will you?"

On Sunday, after seeing his kickers waste at least nine points, Mitchell said of Cipriani: "All I've asked him to do is defend. Last week he was good at times until he chose to be an individual. You have to put your team-mates before yourself. If he shifts in that area he comes back into contention like everyone else."

Regarding the missed chance to play against a former club, Mitchell added: "I'm not Santa Claus and I don't really care where he has played before, but he took it [being dropped from the squad] like a good man. It wasn't a fright to him because two weeks before I had set some criteria for him to meet. Obviously there was a contrast between his two performances and I didn't like the second."

Mitchell insisted that Cipriani had not been the only Sale player to suffer this week – "he's not the only person who has received bad news. If you look in the mix there are other people who are missing out" – but after such a public dressing down from the man who has bankrolled Sale for more than a decade, there have to be doubts about the career of a player once considered England's future.

Mitchell's future also appears to be an issue. He insisted that a win against Worcester in Salford on Friday could right the Sale ship, but it is not known how much longer after that game and the following match away to Saracens he will be around. Before Exeter visit in February, Mitchell could already have returned to South Africa, meaning three actual or de facto directors of rugby will have left Sale in less than a year.

Mitchell has always made it clear that he sees his future in South Africa, where his partner lives and where he is building a home near Durban. Sale had hoped that they would be able to persuade the former All Black coach to stay at least until April and possibly beyond, but it he has already been lined up by SuperSport TV as an analyst for the next Super Rugby season.

For Wasps and their head coach, Dai Young, the season has already been a huge improvement on last year, when they were fighting for their future both on and off the pitch. On Sunday, by Young's own admission they played poorly, but once the No8 Billy Vunipola decided to take the game by the scruff, Sale were always struggling.

They had taken the lead through a try from their own No8 Richie Vernon, but 14 points from Stephen Jones and a try for Thomas Rhys Thomas created by a 60-metre gallop by the 20-year-old Vunipola, not long ago a pupil at Harrow, continued an eight-game winning run which has lifted the former Heineken Cup holders above Worcester and Bath into seventh in the table.